


Flowers in the Attic (may be found at your local public library)

by EmptyWithoutMe



Series: Dust to Dust [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: (! fic title has no relevance to fic contents except for a few similar trigger warnings), (unless you want there to be more that's the beauty of art), Fluff and Angst, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest, they're bastards but they love each other, you've heard of andrew kissing neil's scars now consider: andrew kissing aaron's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 22:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19186594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmptyWithoutMe/pseuds/EmptyWithoutMe
Summary: Aaron's life with Tilda left scars of its own, some of them physical. Andrew treats them with tenderness.





	Flowers in the Attic (may be found at your local public library)

It starts at Eden’s.  
  
Aaron is walking the line between “fucked up but ambulatory” and “blackout,” which is whereabouts where he likes to be on nights like this. The pulsing lights of the dancefloor leave blurry trails across his vision, and he stumbles from group to group of people with the same ferocious hedonism as they all do, anonymity and intoxication stealing the self-imposed barriers to the impulsive pursuit of pleasure. He knocks up against the table his brother parked them at some inexact number of hours ago, tripping over Neil’s untied shoelaces in the process.   
  
“At least I can see,” Neil snaps back easily, to whatever Aaron said. He’s not sure himself, curses coming to his lips as easy as the vodka slides down. He and Neil have an established routine on Eden’s nights where they’re unrestrainedly rude and never hold it against each other in the morning. It’s only half comfortable, but half is better than none.   
  
(Except when you’re talking about dead babies, right? Right?)  
  
(Is one twin a half or a whole?)  
  
Aaron’s glasses are folded on the table before Andrew, narrowly avoiding the radius of Kevin’s drunken flailing as he rants about whatever it is Kevin’s angry about tonight (Aaron doesn’t care). He makes no move to retrieve them. It’s not like they’d help him focus, this many drinks in, and they’d be expensive to replace if he broke them.   
  
Neil is sitting on Andrew’s lap, which is annoying because everything Neil does is annoying, especially when it involves Andrew. A few of the glasses on the table still have liquid in them. Aaron grabs one and downs it. It’s probably for the better that his taste buds don’t work right now.  
  
“Kevin spit in that,” Andrew says, proving Aaron right. Aaron makes a show of gagging—Kevin doesn’t notice, lost in his fantasy rant-world—and drags the hem of his shirt against his tongue. Lint sticks to the inside of his mouth. Now he needs another drink.   
  
He notices that the DJ is playing the middle of a Drake song that’s been stuck in his head all week.   
  
“Be nice to your mother,” Andrew says, mocking; Aaron looks up from his shirt and sees that he’s talking to Neil, who shoves his phone across the table before Andrew can grab it. Stupid dinosaur of a flip-phone. Aaron’s hand smashes into the surface of the table twice before he manages to push it back. With a lot of squinting he can make out what looks like a selfie of Dan.  
  
“Yeah be nice,” he sneers, more to be an ass than because he cares what Neil says to her. They’re all Foxes, and none of them are precious about speech. “Or you’ll get one of these.” He lifts his arm to display the thin scar below his elbow. No, wrong arm. He tries again.  
  
“What,” says Andrew.  
  
Aaron blinks at him. Andrew is swaying, but Aaron thinks that might be the alcohol, not any movement on Andrew’s part. “You know when you’re eight and you tell your mom to make her own fuckin’ dinner for once? Oh wait, you don’t.” He sniggers at his own joke, unbothered when neither Andrew or Neil (or Kevin, who wasn’t listening anyway) laugh along. That’s just how they are.  
  
Andrew’s hand is suddenly around Aaron’s wrist. After a moment of careful thought, Aaron decides that he doesn’t like it. “Hey!”  
  
“We’re leaving,” says Andrew. “Now.”

A stunningly short amount of time later Aaron finds himself bundled into the back seat of Andrew’s car, stuck between a still-shouting Kevin and a Nicky intent on whining his own vocal cords to smithereens. The Kevin Spit Drink is just hitting Aaron’s system, and it makes him bounce in the seat. The leather thud against his legs feels nice. “Turn back around.”  
  
Andrew doesn’t respond. Aaron kicks the center console.  “Turn arouunnnnnd.”

No matter how much noise Aaron makes, Andrew doesn’t stop until he’s pulled into the driveway of the Columbia house. It takes a lot of shoving to get out of the car past the slow-moving Nicky (Aaron isn’t even going to try to squeeze himself around Kevin), and once he does Aaron is pissed off enough to overfill the goddamn toilet.  
  
“The fuck,” he says, as Andrew gets out of the car. Andrew walks around to open the passenger door for Neil with aloof dignity, and Aaron considers denting the side of the Maserati before his deeper survival instincts remind him that’s a bad idea. “It’s barely—” Aaron’s too drunk to read the number on his watch. “It’s not that late!”  
  
“Inside,” Andrew bites out, wrenching Aaron forward by the shoulder, his other hand clasped in Neil’s. Behind them Nicky and Kevin are finally struggling out of the car. Andrew waits until they’re spilled onto the pavement before clicking the button to lock it and dragging Aaron and Neil behind him to the house. Aaron struggles ineffectively. Neil sticks out his tongue at him.   
  
Andrew forces Aaron into his room and slams the door shut behind him, leaving Aaron to figure out how to work the doorknob in his current inebriated state. Fuming, Aaron sits on the bed, arms crossed, tapping his feet on the floor. He’s going to wait until Andrew and Neil are all cozied up under the covers and then he’ll sneak out--  
  
Down the hallway Neil says something, and Nicky laughs, gratingly loud. Kevin’s ranting is muffled as he’s presumably shoved into the bedroom he uses when they’re here. There’s the rafter-shaking thundering of footsteps. Aaron hears them leading up to his room before the door opens and takes a breath to tell Nicky once again that no, he isn’t switching with him, he doesn’t care how loud Kevin snores.  
  
It’s Andrew. He slams the door behind him and pins Aaron with a look. Aaron rearranges the context of his shout and is almost through the first word before the door opens again and Neil slips through, much more quietly.   
  
“No way,” Aaron says. “Get the fuck out.”  
  
“No,” says Neil. He looks to Andrew. Andrew marches over to Aaron and slams a glass of water on the bedside table, sloshing a great deal of it over the side. It’s difficult to see detail without the lights on, but Aaron can feel the tension rolling off him, and if he reached out he wouldn’t be surprised to find that every single one of the muscles in Andrew’s body is clenched.   
  
“We’re taking this,” Neil says, hooking his fingers around the edge of Aaron’s top blanket. Aaron barely hears him, still focused on Andrew. Dimly he feels the sheets wrinkle as Neil drags the blanket off. It’s a good thing it’s a warm night. Unless that is also the alcohol. Then it sucks ass.  
  
Andrew’s palm hits the center of Aaron’s chest, forcing him backwards. Aaron tries to resist, but he is overbalanced before he can get a good fight started. He winds up flat on his back, an awkward diagonal across the pillow. Andrew presses down and leans close.  
  
“Go to sleep,” he says, his breath hot and damp against Aaron’s ear. Aaron scowls, and Andrew’s hand presses harder, warning.   
  
“Fine,” Aaron says finally. “What, you staying to make sure?”  
  
“Yes,” says Neil simply. He sets the blanket billowing over the floorboards like it’s a picnic and stretches out on one side. Aaron is furious. Aaron is helpless under the weight of Andrew’s hand. Aaron stays awake until the alcohol is nearly spun out of his veins, fists clenched, staring at the slumbering forms of Neil and his brother on their stolen blanket until at last his gritty eyes become too heavy to keep from falling shut.  


With the morning comes the hangover, a tired routine. Aaron gulps the water on his nightstand before remembering Andrew left it there and considers throwing it up out of spite. His stomach is certainly rocky enough for the task. The blanket on the floor is empty, bunched up around the memory of two forms. Andrew glares at it, which hurts his head, so he settles for staring in strong dislike instead.  
  
The creak of the door reverberates through Aaron’s skull with the cheer of a machine gun. He lifts his tender head and sees Andrew, because, of course. He’d throw the empty water cup but he has, alas, already put it down.  
  
“Go away,” Aaron says.  
  
Andrew doesn’t. He comes towards him across the floorboards, confident and unhurried, and sits down on the end of Aaron’s bed. The mattress dips under his weight, and Aaron has to make a concentrated effort not to slide towards him. His feet are tangled in the covers; Andrew rests a hand on Aaron’s ankle through them and raises his eyebrows in silent question.  
  
“…yes,” Aaron says, sullen. They’ve only started doing this recently, and Aaron is stupidly weak for it every time. Even when angry, or sad, or wrapped in the terrible blankness that comes over him without warning when all he needs to do is finish his Cell Bio assignment, Jesus, why can’t he fucking _finish his assignment_.   
  
Andrew waits, unmoving, hand a steady weight. Aaron pushes air out through his clenched teeth and relaxes in degrees back into the pillows. He closes his eyes and counts to ten, and when he speaks again his voice comes out gentler. “Yes, Andrew. Really.”

He’s expecting a kiss. Instead Andrew reaches out and touches Aaron’s elbow. Aaron is confused until he realizes Andrew is tracing the scar he showed off last night.  
  
“Where did you get this?” Andrew asks.  
  
“I _told_ you,” Aaron says. Maybe it comes out like a whine. He knows about Andrew’s memory, and he’s cranky and has a lot of schoolwork to do today; if Andrew’s not going to do anything interesting than Aaron’s going to get up and leave.  
  
Andrew just looks at him, waiting, without doubt that Aaron will answer him. Aaron hates how he does that. Hates how it works, and Andrew’s right.   
  
“Mom,” he says, reluctantly. “I’d stolen Tyler’s Gameboy and I wanted to keep playing it, but she said she was hungry. I told her she could make her own dinner. It was—a wine bottle. I put my arms over my head. She didn’t mean to make it cut, but I was being a brat and a half.”  
  
The touch of Andrew’s fingertips tickles. His eyes flick between Aaron’s face and the scar, wrapping from the point of his elbow to his forearm, and then he leans forward and presses his lips to the very center. It’s the gentlest kiss Andrew has ever given him. If Aaron weren’t watching, he wouldn’t be sure Andrew’s mouth had touched him at all.  
  
“No excuses,” Andrew says. He sounds as if someone has taken sandpaper to his throat between these words and his last. “Just tell me. You’ve got others.”  
  
Aaron’s not sure how he knows, except—it’s not that big a leap of logic. Every collects a multitude of scars growing up, if not usually as much as Neil. Not that Aaron’s seen all of those; but he’s not an idiot, and he can guess. Under Andrew’s gaze he stands and shucks off his shirt and last night’s jeans, leaving on his socks and his boxers, and lies back down. The sheets feel rougher than usual.   
  
He starts with the divot on the side of his calf. “This was when I was thirteen, I think? She pushed me and I fell onto an exposed nail. Had to find the peroxide so I wouldn’t get Tetanus. She didn’t know it was—” Andrew’s jaw tightens. Aaron swallows the rest of the sentence and lies still. Andrew waits for him to decide if he’s going to continue anyway, and when he doesn’t, gives Aaron a nod (Aaron hates how pleased he is at this), and bows his head to kiss over that scar as well.   
  
They continue over the rest of Aaron’s body in this fashion, a meandering path as Aaron remembers scars or Andrew finds them.

Not all of them are from Mom. There’s the time he split his knee open falling off a bike, for instance, and the acne on his thighs he clawed off, leaving their bruise-like pockmarks. These Andrew doesn’t kiss, simply touches them lightly and moves on. But the others get whisper-soft brushes of lips. The burn on his lower back. Age six, the edge of a boiling pot of water. The finger that never set right when Aaron couldn’t get his hand out of the way of the door she was slamming fast enough. There’s not a lot of them. Mom was good about not leaving marks, except when she was really out of it, or Aaron was being especially bad.   
  
It’s not sexual. It has a ritualistic feeling about it, as if this is sacred, from some religion Luther and Maria never knew. Goosebumps rise over Aaron’s whole body and he shivers into the mattress, not from cold but from how terribly, wonderfully present he is, and Andrew is, his hands and mouth on Aaron’s body. He can no longer speak above a murmur. It seems sacrilegious to break this pocket of sun-kissed quiet the two of them have, humid from the late spring air and wrapped in gauze to protect it from outside contaminants.   
  
Andrew reaches Aaron’s face, propped completely over him, covering Aaron’s body with his own. He drops a kiss to Aaron’s mouth and Aaron parts his lips willingly but Andrew doesn’t linger, pulling back enough to meet Aaron’s eyes as he strokes his hands through Aaron’s hair. Aaron’s heart is a shuddery thing in his chest.  
  
“What about this one,” Andrew says, fingers stopping on the jagged line that puckers out of Aaron’s scalp. Aaron bites the inside of his cheek. Of course Andrew noticed that one, the times they’ve kissed. It’s well hidden by Aaron’s hair, so he doesn’t think of it often, but Andrew’s question brings the reality of it back to the surface, fanciful memory making it ache.  
  
“That was when she found out I’d tried to contact you,” Aaron says quietly. “I think she was trying to cut off all my hair, but the scissors…”  
  
He trails off, cursing himself for the excuse Andrew doesn’t want to hear. For a moment he thinks that’s why Andrew has gone rigid, and then he sees that Andrew’s eyes are blank, far away. “Andrew?”  
  
Andrew digs his fingers into Aaron’s scalp on either side of the scar, hard, and swings himself down from the bed. The room is cold in his absence. With measured steps, he walks over to the desk in the corner, picks up the unplugged study lamp, and hurls it against the wall.  
  
The sound of it shattering jolts Aaron into action. He curls up, instinctively folding his arms over his head, and crowds himself against the wall. Shit, shit _shit_ , he shouldn’t have brought that up, shouldn’t have mentioned contacting Andrew at all, he knows what that set off with Drake, he heard it in the courtroom and he should have thought, _I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry_ \--  
  
 There’s shouting from the hallway; Neil bursts in, a spatula raised as a weapon, and Nicky’s fast on his heels, makeup smudged from his eyes and crusted down his face. Aaron is shaking so badly he’s bruising the side of his arm on the windowsill. Andrew is still staring at the wreckage of the lamp.  
  
Neil makes a sound like the air leaving a balloon and goes over to him, hand hovering over Andrew’s shoulder. Andrew jerks his head to the side, _no_ , and Neil folds his hands behind his back.   
  
“Aaron! Andrew? Are you all right?” Nicky has obviously just woken up. He flutters his hands up near his neck, looking between the two of them with eyes wide and scared. Aaron pushes his face into his curled knees so he doesn’t have to see. He can’t deal with Nicky’s compassion right now.  
  
“Leave,” Andrew says, sharp. Neil does immediately, pulling Nicky behind him when Nicky seems keen on staying to ask questions. The door bounces off the lock and clicks open, showing a sliver of outside carpet through the crack. Aaron focuses on this. The carpet is green. Puke green. He’s still queasy from the hangover. He needs to think about something else.  
  
Andrew is there again, kneeling before him on the bed, filling up the corners of Aaron’s vision with pale skin and black cotton. His fingers pinch Aaron’s chin, force his head up to meet Andrew’s gaze.   
  
“I’m having a panic attack,” Aaron says as steadily as he can, which isn’t very.  
  
“I know,” says Andrew, and that shouldn’t help but it does, the acknowledgement. He keeps hold of Aaron’s face, keeps Aaron looking at him, as Aaron shudders through the gasping breaths and the tightness of his chest. He doesn’t try to talk Aaron out of it, just gives him something to focus on—him—and takes Aaron’s weight when Aaron pitches forward, tears streaming into the collar of Andrew’s t-shirt. Aaron thinks, _why isn’t he doing more?_ It’s easier to calm down without anyone chattering at him. How could Andrew have known that? It’s awful. Aaron’s grateful for it.  
  
When Aaron’s regained control of himself he rocks back onto his own heels, embarrassed. Andrew takes a fistful of sheets and wipes Aaron’s wet face with short, efficient strokes, dropping the now-damp fabric into Aaron’s lap when he’s done. Aaron’s cheeks feel scrubbed raw, but that’s always how he feels after crying. He blows his nose on the sheets as well. They’re due for a wash anyway.

He wonders if he should say thank you. Or sorry.  
  
“Breakfast in the kitchen,” says Andrew, and leaves.

 

Aaron’s shaken, but Andrew doesn’t bring up the issue again, so he figures that’s as good a sign to keep his mouth shut as any. He spends the rest of the weekend buried in work—complaining intermittently to Katelyn over text, and occasionally letting himself be distracted with anecdotes over what her parents’ new kitten is doing—and by the time he gets to his first class on Monday he can almost convince himself not to think about it.  
  
He doesn’t see Neil coming until he has Aaron slammed against a bookshelf in the library with an arm across his throat. The bookshelf is the flimsy metal kind instead of the heavier wood, and a blue-bound textbook rattles free to land on Aaron’s toe.  
  
“Ow!”  
  
“Listen,” says Neil, ignoring him. Aaron swears he could throw Neil off. It’s shock keeping him from doing it, that’s all. “I don’t know what happened last weekend, but it’s really shitty of you to let Andrew spiral like this. Talk to him or apologize or whatever it is you two need, but you’d better fix it.”  
  
“Or what?” Aaron says automatically, his brain scrambling to keep up. Andrew hadn’t seemed different than usual. Same stone-faced orders, same stomping around the house like it personally wronged him, same cutting Kevin off with rude suggestions whenever Kevin tried to talk about Exy (so, whenever Kevin tried to talk, period).  
  
 Unless Aaron’s been too stuck in his own head to notice.   
  
Anger is quick to follow guilt. If Andrew wanted him to know something, why couldn’t he just _tell_ Aaron? When was the last time his twin told him _anything?_   
  
Neil smiles, the thin-edged one that always makes ice trickle down Aaron’s spine. “Or I’ll fix it myself by removing you. Don’t test me. I know which brother I like better.”  
  
Neil’s eyes are really blue, which is a stupid thing to think while being threatened with death. Aaron shakes his head to get some sense into it. “I didn’t—I didn’t know he was fucked up. You ever considered it’s something else? He was fine on Saturday, he talked me down from a—” fuck, now Neil’s going to have information about a weakness, but the words are out before Aaron can slam the breaks— “panic attack, and I didn’t ask him to, so it wasn’t me. Andrew wouldn’t have done that if it was. He doesn’t do shit he doesn’t want to, don’t you know that?”  
  
If he can convince Neil, then it’ll be true.  
  
Neil’s arm presses down harder, and looking into his eyes, Aaron has no doubt that Neil is weighing the pros and cons of choking him against the bookshelf right there. The struggle takes longer than Aaron is entirely comfortable with. His windpipe feels scratchy when Neil finally removes his arm, and Aaron tries to subtly massage his throat. As there’s not much subtlety to be found when you’re five inches from someone’s face, he doesn’t think he sells the lie.  
  
“If you believe him when he says that, you’re dumber than I thought,” Neil hisses, and is gone.  
  
  
Aaron finds Andrew on the roof of Fox Tower. His twin isn’t difficult to locate, if you’re actually trying. He announces his presence with a clearing of his throat, but he’s sure Andrew knew he was there from the moment he got to the top of the staircase. Indeed, Andrew doesn’t react at all.  
  
Aaron sits down next to him, folding his legs underneath himself. The concrete, warmed from the sun, burns his ass through his sweatpants. Aaron puts it out of his mind. “Neil says you’re upset about Saturday.”  
  
“Neil’s an idiot,” Andrew says. He’s smoking; when is he not? Aaron doesn’t point it out. He’ll leave the preaching to Kevin. The other Foxes are surprised that Aaron doesn’t draw on what they consider to be his vast store of biochemical knowledge to convince Andrew to quit, but the truth is Aaron can’t dredge up enough will to care. Cigarettes are such baby shit compared to what he and Mom used to be on that it’s laughable.  
  
“Yeah,” Aaron agrees. “But he knows you.” He can’t keep the bitterness from creeping into his tone. He doesn’t hate Neil, when he’s being honest with himself. He’s even starting to trust him. But he hates how Neil got Andrew’s attention so easily, how Andrew believed all his spouted lies so transparent it must’ve taken willful ignorance to swallow them, how Neil’s the darling of the whole team even though he’s rude and fucked-up and carried the lot of them into a dick-waving contest with the _Japanese mafia_ , for Chrissake. Aaron’s not tried to make friends, but he’s--   
  
He didn’t realize that those kinds of relationships were possible for people like them until Neil came and stole them all from underneath his feet.  
  
Andrew’s fingers drum on the concrete in succession, one-two-three-four. “I hate that she marked you,” he says, abruptly. Aaron waits for more, but there isn’t any. Andrew blows smoke out over the campus. From up here, in the springtime sunlight, it looks like a collegiate advertisement. _Come to Palmetto, we offer state-of-the-art classes in trauma and fucked up family dynamics!_  
  
Aaron combs his hair over his eyes, searching for the ridge of the scar with his fingers. When he finds it he scratches at it, lightly, like it’s dandruff he’s trying to get free. Andrew isn’t looking but Aaron has no delusions he doesn’t see.  
  
“I’m sorry I freaked out, okay?” he says. If he were a good brother, he’d say it gently, but he’s not, so he doesn’t. “I won’t do it again.”  


“Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Not to me. Haven’t you learned that already?”  
  
That’s a low blow. “Fuck you.”  
  
“Not yet.”  
  
The jolt in Aaron’s stomach is not entirely irritation. “What do you want from me?”  
  
Andrew doesn’t answer. Instead he puts out his cigarette on Aaron’s knee—as if sweatpants are free, the asshole—and uses his newly empty hand to tug at Aaron’s hair, over where he’s still worrying at the scar. “A wise man once said, a scar is a memory you can’t get rid of.”  
  
“Which wise man?”  
  
“Me.” Andrew feels out the length of the puckered tissue, following when Aaron tries to rear back in protest at his arrogance, his fingers feather-light. He strokes over the scar from end to end, and then does it again. “I will not let this happen again. If anyone tries, you tell me, and I will hunt her down.”  
  
“What if it’s not a woman?”  
  
Andrew’s face is unamused.  
  
Aaron sighs. “Fine. Whatever.”  
  
“Good,” Andrew says. He flattens his hand so it covers the side of Aaron’s head, fingertips on the scar, wrist against his jaw. “You are mine.”  
  
Andrew’s hand is sweaty. Aaron leans into it anyway, pathetic for the touch like he always is, from Andrew. He hadn’t realized it, but his chest feels lighter now that he and Andrew have talked. Fuck Neil for knowing before he did.  
  
“Tell me next time,” Aaron says. “I want to know.”  
  
“You’re annoying,” Andrew says, and shoves Aaron away, smushing Aaron’s face and twisting his neck. He looks back out over the campus and fishes out another cigarette. He doesn’t even glance at Aaron’s cursing and balance-righting.  
  
It isn’t a no.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Neil: *shoves Aaron against a bookcase and threatens to kill him*  
> Aaron: hot


End file.
